HEARTBEAT

He carefully pulled the marrow out from the bone and dried them. He turned the tough leather hide of the Celestial Storms into a true aether, and the flaming feathers of the Celestial Embers into carefully outlined runes.

His Force Crafting Quill danced in the air, simple and unadorned, but radiating with the rainbow color of the surrounding formations.

His free hand tapped at the air with the majesty of an elite pianist, but with a speed that far surpassed it.

Every finger stroke was like a rumble of thunder and a flash of lightning, a tsunami of earth and a hurricane of blades. Despite the short distance they moved, the booming echo flew through the air and shattered space like fragmenting glass. Sometimes, these fragments would even bombard against Leonel's own body, blood leaking between his nails and the joints of his digits.

But he didn't seem to notice at all as veins popped across him, his focus reaching an absolutely unprecedented state.

Tolliver weaved in and out of the materials, sometimes crushing them like a hammer, sometimes molding them with the expert care of a clay master, and sometimes sewing them together beneath some mysterious power.

Leonel's face continued to pale as blood drained from his body, but the light in his eyes only glowed brighter and brighter.

"You will give them life..." he said softly.

A roar suddenly filled the skies.

Tolliver soared up like a Dragon piercing the clouds, then soared like a Phoenix who could cross worlds with a single flap of its wings...

The Metal Spirit twisted in the air and plunged downward, its body arching and becoming a leaping tiger prepared to tear its prey apart.

Just as it was about to collide with the ground, it expanded wildly, its body becoming a towering mountain as a tortoise landed on the ground.

BOOM!

A flash of silver filled the world, and a pillar connected the earth to the skies.

Leonel's second Incomplete World thrummed to life and runes suddenly began to appear all across his body.

The earth trembled, and the skies flashed around him.

At that moment, the thrumming silver light rushed into his body, fusing with the runes.

An explosion erupted, and Leonel's body shattered.

His skin splintered like wood, his bones fragmenting like glass. His blood boiled to ash and his soul felt like it was being shredded to pieces. © 2024.

He roared, his eyes shining with such bright violet lights and his pupils and sclera vanished, making it look like a twin pair of orbs of light had taken their place instead.

The surrounding land trembled, the reeking stench of blood filling the skies.

The earth shook and splintered, a great surge of Auspicious Air flooding into his body as the Natural Force Art seemed to be quickly losing its luster.

An Artistic Conception for the ages began to swim across Leonel's skin.

His clothing burst to ashes and tattoos of silver, gold and black began to etch themselves in blood.

A dragon swam up his arm, its mighty head taking his chest and roaring toward the skies.

A tiger took up the other arm, its tail dangling and spiraling down and around his leg, while its head took up his shoulder. Its maw hung open, its glistening teeth shimmering with a dark abyss.

A phoenix wrapped up his other leg, its wings spreading across his body and becoming a backdrop to the dragon on his chest and his back...

A mighty mountain took up his sculpted back and his muscles seemed to solidify even further beneath its presence.

The four creatures swarmed and moved as though they could live and breathe, not acting like real tattoos in the slightest. From time to time, a silver Metal Spirit would poke out from them one after another, dominating in its presence.

Blood fell from Leonel's body, and his head hung low. However, that was when a heartbeat echoed into the world.

To call it a thrum of thunder was to do it an injustice. It was like a world was awakening and the skies were opening up for the first time.

An ill-suppressed void appeared around Leonel, and it felt like reality might crumble at any moment.

His hair suddenly grew out and became several times paler, so much so that it looked almost entirely white under most circumstances.

A pair of sweats appeared on his body, rolled up to his calves, and having a waistline that spilled over with tufts of gorgeous, soft white fur.

Braces appeared on his wrists and forearms in a flickering red-gold flame, and a necklace of blackened tiger teeth manifested around his neck.

A halo appeared parallel to his back, and large enough to swallow his body whole. It was perfectly smooth, and polished to an extreme, but it radiated a deathly sort of Force that made it seem much darker than the bright silver that it was.

Braces appeared around his ankles at the same time, matching the ones on his wrist, but much looser. Every time his legs shifted, they hovered and rattled against one another, sending out a pulse of flames that wiped out everything in the vicinity.

At that moment, the enormous, mountain of a shell that had protected the Celestial Terror trembled.

Leonel weakly raised a bloodied hand and then clenched it.

The world's laws obeyed.

lightsΝοvεl ƈοm The enormous mountainous shell was compressed in an instant, forming such a small pebble that the pressure made it erupt in flames as well until it shimmered like Existence's most resplendent diamond.

With his head still lowered, the polished diamond floated toward Leonel as though it weighed as light as a feather and pressed against his forehead.

BOOM!

Leonel's aura erupted, a suffocating presence spreading out with him as the center.

His wounds healed so rapidly that broken flesh fell from his body and dried blood flew into the air like ash.

Standing there, head lowered and the weight of a world on his body, Leonel's heart thrummed again.

And this time, the whole of Existence seemed to hear it.